Portsea - Victoria - Australia

Portsea Golf Club, which is laid out efficiently over 137 acres of land, lies at the very southernmost claw of the Mornington Peninsula. The sedate holiday and retiree township of Portsea lies to the east outside the entrance to the golf club and to the west the land narrows to the point of Port Philip Bay.

Portsea Golf Club is a charming, historic, local golf club near the sea. Although short by modern championship standards, the visitor will enjoy a full and testing experience. Local knowledge is a valuable commodity, as the members are apt to point out, and some pretty stiff breezes play in from the sea. The course guide while useful is enigmatic on many points and the golfer’s eye will have to be deployed on several occasions.

The layout of holes is somewhat haphazard but none the worse for that. Most of the first nine abuts the western perimeter of the property and the back nine is laid out to the north and the east. The land is undulating, severely at times and the holes are lined with dense vegetation so the atmosphere is peaceful. On the higher points of the course you can spot the gable ends and the occasional upper floor of the many handsome homes that have been built in Portsea by its comfortable residents.

The above passage is a brief edited extract from The Finest Golf Courses of Asia and Australasia by James Spence. Reproduced with kind permission.